


Ride Until We Fall

by dreamlittleyo



Series: This Hard Land 'Verse [1]
Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Romance, Sexual Tension, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serenity isn't Jo's home, but maybe it's not such a bad place to be.<br/><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ride Until We Fall

It's been seven months since she woke up on the floor of the cargo hold, with no memories, an upset stomach, and her face crisscrossed with red lines where her cheek was pressed against the grating.

She's recovered glimpses and patches of memory since then. She knows her name is Jo Harvelle. She has a mother somewhere, though she can't find a face or a name to attach to the memory. She's got a sharp right hook and a mean way with knives, and somewhere in the back of her head she knows it's her daddy that taught her those things.

She remembers enough to know this isn't where she belongs. The world she sees in her dreams is nothing like this one. There's no space travel there, no wide-spreading solar system filled with inhabited planets. No Alliance.

But when she opens her eyes each morning, she's right back in her bunk, on an honest-to-god space ship, chilly from the vast emptiness of space.

Jo has made a life for herself here, thanks to luck and the element of surprise. The tall, surly captain—Malcolm Reynolds, she's learned since—wasn't expecting her to pack so much punch, and even though he wandered away muttering about little girls hitting him in the face, he let her stay.

Jo didn't point out at the time that she's hardly a little girl, but she's let him know a dozen times since: with a word or an eyebrow or a scandalously tight shirt. She's also done everything she can to make herself an irreplaceable element of the crew, because this ship—Serenity—is the only security she knows.

She wondered, at first, how long she would be allowed to stay. It put a nervous pit in her stomach, like a gnawing black hole of anxiety, until one day the quiet, cautious girl named River approached her in the kitchen and said, "He won't leave you behind. He has a feeling about you."

Cryptic as hell, but Jo gets now that that's just River's way. Cryptic and dangerous, and somehow both impossibly young and ancient at the same time. Jo likes her, even if they've never shared a normal conversation. She sits in the cockpit sometimes, watching River's steady hands fly the ship and wondering about the plastic trees and dinosaurs that decorate the console.

Jo is fond of Kaylee from day one—knows a kindred spirit when she sees one—and she likes Simon well enough. She admires the fanatical care he takes of his sister. He reminds her a little of Dean, if she's going to be honest. And she's not scared of Jayne. She's known too many guys like that through the years, and maybe he's not a gold-hearted marshmallow, but he's also not a threat. Not to her.

She doesn't really know Zoe. She doesn't figure she ever will.

And then there's Mal. Swaggering, cocky, heartbroken Mal who bleeds for his crew and quietly, stoically mourns the people he's lost. Jo can read every failure in his eyes, quiet shadows that she won't ask him to explain. She gravitates to him instinctively, finds him fascinating in ways she can't put into words, and from the way he looks at her—curious and surreptitious, like he doesn't think she'll notice—the feeling is mutual.

Jo's been tagging along on jobs since her fourth week aboard, and she hasn't let Mal down yet. She's determined not to, even as she hauls his injured ass back up the boarding ramp time after anxious time.

She comes across him drinking in the quiet, empty mess hall once. She can't sleep herself after watching Jayne almost bleed out in the sand less than seven hours ago, and when she sits across the table from Mal, he sets the bottle down and slides it towards her.

"I don't like putting you in harm's way," he admits, and his voice sounds sleepy enough to tell her he's a little drunk. "You ain't like Jayne. Not your place to be a soldier."

"I don't mind," she says, taking a swig. She keeps her face blank despite the burn of liquor down her throat.

"You disarm people," he says softly. "Always look all pretty and harmless. It don't occur to them that you could do them damage."

She smirks a little and wonders if ' _pretty_ ' was a conscious admission or just a slip of the tongue.

"Like you?" she teases. "Not expecting me to give you a bloody nose when we first met?"

"Exactly like that," he says, and very nearly smiles. "I took River out on a job once, but that don't work so well now."

"Can't do much without a getaway driver," Jo says, and wonders if she could learn how to fly the ship. She likes going out and helping—likes being the element of surprise when they're in unfriendly territory—but it wouldn't hurt to have another skill to contribute.

He never apologizes for the danger, but he looks downright sick to his stomach when their next job goes south and Jo gets hurt.

"Would you stop freaking out?" she grouses at him, flexing her fingers and resisting the urge to scratch at her arm. The newly stitched wound itches like hell.

"Next time when I say 'get down'? You get down," he tells her stonily.

"Yessir," says Jo, more warmly than she means to. The drugs are making her feel a little light-headed.

Mal storms around the ship in a funk for days—until Simon declares her fully recovered—and when he disappears into his bunk that night, Jo only thinks about it for ten seconds before following him down the ladder and locking the door behind her.

"I think you got the wrong bunk, darlin'," says Mal, but behind his steady, smarmy tone Jo can hear a carefully masked uneasiness. Behind his eyes she can see a warning spark of heat.

"I don't think so," she says, moving closer. She takes slow, careful steps—not the slightest bit hesitant, but the last thing she wants to do is spook him. He holds his ground admirably, eyes darkening at her approach, and Jo can see him struggling with the ideas she's putting in his head.

She knows he's tall, but when she stops in front of him it's still a revelation. She has to tilt her head back and back to meet his eyes, and he's going to have to meet her halfway. Even if she pops up on her toes, she won't be able to kiss him.

She sets a hand on his chest instead, right over his heart where she can feel his pulse: ragged and unsteady and picking up speed. For a long, taut moment all he does is look at her, his eyes narrow and gauging and still reflecting that spark of heat. When he reaches to cover her hand with his own, his grip is solid and warm.

"Bad idea," he says. His voice is thick with warning and intent—and just a hint of fear.

"You think you'd be taking advantage of me?" she asks, trying for a teasing tone and falling about twenty miles short.

Mal considers her silently before answering, "No. I got no delusions on that score."

"Then what's the problem?" she asks.

"Everything else," says Mal, and Jo kind of knows what he means.

Problem is, she really wants this anyway.

"Either kick me out or kiss me," she says, letting steel determination darken her voice. "But don't waste my time telling me things I already know."

The silence that follows is edgy and electric, and when Mal's eyes narrow, Jo honestly doesn't know whether he's going to kiss her or send her packing. She wants to stay. _God_ does she want to stay. But she can't read his intentions beneath the tight set of his shoulders.

She's about to give up hope by the time his blank mask finally cracks and twists into a small, rueful smile.

"Okay," he says, and leans down to meet her halfway.


End file.
